Prized Baseball Record Clouded by Controversy
Outside San Francisco, the future home run king is no giant with the fans.
Aug. 7, 2007 — -- These should be the best of days for Barry Bonds. He's about to be crowned the home run king, arguably the most coveted record in baseball, if not all sports.
It's one of the hardest things an athlete can do: hit a ball traveling more than 90 miles an hour 400 feet in the air, over a fence.
Hank Aaron did it 755 times -- a record set more than 30 years ago -- only after surpassing the "Great One," Babe Ruth.
When he plays in his home park in San Francisco, Bonds is a giant. But away from the bay, he is booed.
The man who some consider one of baseball's greatest player is taunted when he walks to the plate, a reaction that seems to mystify him.
"I don't have any idea why anyone would express any hatred toward any other person that you don't know," Bonds said at a May 2006 press conference. "I don't know why that would happen to anybody."
But fans, even young ones in Chicago, think they know him, and what they know, they don't like.
"I don't really want him to. He doesn't deserve it," said baseball fan Connor Prokop. "He's a cheater, and his attitude…He has a bad attitude towards the fans and the team."
Connor's sentiment is a common one. It sums up what many believe are Barry Bonds' two sins.
First, in a sport designed to entertain, Bonds, a man with a prickly personality, is not seen as fan friendly.
"He does seem kind of miserable sometimes," said Paul Sullivan, who covers baseball for the Chicago Tribune, "going through his career when he should be enjoying himself, but that's kind of sad. Personality-wise, I think he's his own worst enemy."
Of course, there's no law against being unfriendly, or even a jerk. But that is nothing compared to his other alleged sin, the one that has inflamed fans globally, and created a cloud of controversy over Bonds.
"[I] don't think that he's done it by the books, if you know what I mean," said Jerry Clemons, another baseball fan, regarding Bonds' rising home run tally. "I think that he's been juicing."
